Leaving Home - A Refugee Story

• Ella Stevenson, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2017

BOOM, CRASH, BANG! The bombs went off again. The terrifying sound made our small, house shake, making me feel like once again I was about to die. I felt my younger sister’s bruised arms wrap around me and hug me tight as we crouched on the floor of her bedroom. The fears felt like a never-ending whirlpool in my mind of fear, anger and sadness.
Suddenly, mum burst through the old, frail door carrying small, woven, brown bags then came the words I will never forget…
“We must leave, now!” I found myself stuffing only a few belongings in my bag.
“Only the important things,” stated mum with a sense of dread in her shaky voice. I was only twelve and yet I felt like a criminal, escaping from the only place I knew, Syria, I was going to be a refugee.
Mother pulled Maya and me closer, gripping our hands as tight as possible. Our legs just carrying us as we walked down the gravel road. The blazing, Syrian sun boiled our dirty faces. We were escaping our war-infested country, but we still knew it would not be an easy or safe venture.
The boat finally came into sight, it was little and covered in rust with only one room and no other shelter. Then the goose bumps crawled up my arms with fear, I never learnt to swim!
“Everyone on! Now!” The old man declared with authority and sternness in his voice. Then the sound of the engine began to rumble and the boat began moving with the ripples in the polluted ocean.
As the sun began to set and the waves began to surge and grow I couldn’t help but let my young mind drift like the dancing seaweed below me. Would I make it to a safe land, alive? How will I survive? The thought of my next bland, tasteless and rationed meal made me feel homesick and long to see my town. I knew though, that it was too late to turn this rickety boat around. I would just have wait and see.